I'm pleased to show you the video of our best speaker of the evening: your president! In this speech, I outlined some ways to help you in dealing with your fear of public speaking. The information in the speech was a collection of my personal experiences and from other speakers who posted their advice on the net. I believe that if you do follow these steps, you'll be on your way to being a better speaker.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. Or better yet, come to our meeting! Our next meeting is the first Tuesday of September. See you soon!
Script:
➠Hello Toastmasters, and welcome to ALEMAX's online tutorial "How to become a better speaker". In this session, I will touch on one of the most important areas of public speaking: mastering your fears. In the next 5 minutes, you will learn more about the fear of speaking in public, why people are so afraid of being in front of people, the ways to overcome this fear, and 6 steps to becoming a more confident speaker.
It is known that the fear of speaking is one of the greatest fears to man behind the fear of snakes and the fear of dying. Perhaps to illustrate my point, I'm going to cue up a photo I downloaded from the web.
And, here it is.
How does this picture make you feel? Do you suddenly feel a sense of anxiety or discomfort in your stomach? For some of you, it may be so powerful that you may want to throw up. Check your hands, they may feel wet and clammy.
Recently, I had to speak in front of a group of about 100 very experienced toastmasters some of whom have had over 10 years of public speaking experience, and I felt my heart racing and I couldn't help looking at my notes over and over to make sure that I wouldn't look stupid. I had a similar experience when I delivered by first ever speech at another Toastmasters club during a table topics session. I remember I was so frightened that I could barely think straight.
One of the main reasons behind this fear is about performance. You see, we value other people's opinions and it is our fear that if we don't hear praise or encouragement from those that we know and trust, that our ego and our self-worth, will be hurt in some way. In other words, we pressure ourselves to perform in order to maintain our sense of value, pride, and dignity. It is no wonder that many of us don't want to speak in public. Nobody likes to be in a vulnerable position. Some guests at Toastmasters may refuse to join because of that fact. They politely say that they'll join "when their public speaking abilities improve". Unfortunately, their speaking abilities won't improve until they get out in the public and start speaking.
So here are some steps to overcome the fear of public speaking:
Step 1: Before writing your speech make sure you understand the actual project your are doing. That is, you must understand what kind of audience you are speaking to and under what conditions. Speeches delivered in a corporate setting and a charity setting are very different. Knowing that your speech is tailored to the specific project will minimize the chance of you questioning the quality of your speech right before you deliver it. You will pick up the microphone with confidence.
Step 2: Minimize your chance of making mistakes by practicing your speech until you feel very confident. If you dread delivering your speech, you haven't practiced enough. The feeling you should have is that you can't wait to deliver your speech.
And, how do you practice? Your speech should be written out completely or in an outline that's easy to follow. Memorize your speech efficiently by engraining the key words from your speech. The key word helps you remember the main points of your speech.
The best way I practice my speech is being able to say my speech anywhere and everywhere. When I walk in the park or I'm in the shower, I would take parts of my speech and just practice. If you know what your speech environment is going to be like, you can just close your eyes and imagine delivering your speech in that setting. That will train yourself to be more comfortable and relaxed when it's time to deliver your speech.
Step 3: Know that you've already had some practice with table topics. If you forget some part, you should still have some idea of what to say. Use your own words as if it's a table topics session. You can use words like "what I mean is..." "in other words..." The audience may not even notice any deviation from your actual script.
Step 4: Have a very brief outline ready. In the unlikely event of blanking out completely because you followed the first two steps, the outline will help get you back on track. But, don't write too much information on there because you don't want it to look too obvious that you've forgotten some part of your speech. Or, that you will just rely on your outline completely. You don't want to lose eye contact with your audience. Just use it as a back up.
Step 5: This one is the most important step. Your frame of mind before you head to the stage can make or break a speech. There are some methods out there about imagining the audience in underwear or clown outfits. But, I tend to use a more practical approach. I imagine that my heart is placed in the safest place possible. And, I remind myself that no matter what the result of the speech is, I would not be affected in anyway. For some, that place may be in God's hands or a trustworthy person. Effectively, your fear would not be a factor because you have just taken your focus from possible negative opinions from others.
Step 6: Take a deep breath. Breathing is one of the most important and underutilized methods of calming oneself. In fact, if you try it right now, breathe deeply and try to think.
You can't. So, breathing will help you clear your thoughts, and mentally prepare you before you get on the stage.
So, congratulations fellow toastmasters, you are equipped with the fear conquering skills. Remember, know your project, practice, use quick thinking, have a brief outline, check your frame of mind, and breathe. You are on your way to being a more confident and powerful speaker. I hope you have the opportunity to speak at our club, remember, our meetings are every 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of every month at the Urban33 hotel. Thank you for watching.
➠Hello Toastmasters, and welcome to ALEMAX's online tutorial "How to become a better speaker". In this session, I will touch on one of the most important areas of public speaking: mastering your fears. In the next 5 minutes, you will learn more about the fear of speaking in public, why people are so afraid of being in front of people, the ways to overcome this fear, and 6 steps to becoming a more confident speaker.
It is known that the fear of speaking is one of the greatest fears to man behind the fear of snakes and the fear of dying. Perhaps to illustrate my point, I'm going to cue up a photo I downloaded from the web.
And, here it is.
How does this picture make you feel? Do you suddenly feel a sense of anxiety or discomfort in your stomach? For some of you, it may be so powerful that you may want to throw up. Check your hands, they may feel wet and clammy.
Recently, I had to speak in front of a group of about 100 very experienced toastmasters some of whom have had over 10 years of public speaking experience, and I felt my heart racing and I couldn't help looking at my notes over and over to make sure that I wouldn't look stupid. I had a similar experience when I delivered by first ever speech at another Toastmasters club during a table topics session. I remember I was so frightened that I could barely think straight.
One of the main reasons behind this fear is about performance. You see, we value other people's opinions and it is our fear that if we don't hear praise or encouragement from those that we know and trust, that our ego and our self-worth, will be hurt in some way. In other words, we pressure ourselves to perform in order to maintain our sense of value, pride, and dignity. It is no wonder that many of us don't want to speak in public. Nobody likes to be in a vulnerable position. Some guests at Toastmasters may refuse to join because of that fact. They politely say that they'll join "when their public speaking abilities improve". Unfortunately, their speaking abilities won't improve until they get out in the public and start speaking.
So here are some steps to overcome the fear of public speaking:
Step 1: Before writing your speech make sure you understand the actual project your are doing. That is, you must understand what kind of audience you are speaking to and under what conditions. Speeches delivered in a corporate setting and a charity setting are very different. Knowing that your speech is tailored to the specific project will minimize the chance of you questioning the quality of your speech right before you deliver it. You will pick up the microphone with confidence.
Step 2: Minimize your chance of making mistakes by practicing your speech until you feel very confident. If you dread delivering your speech, you haven't practiced enough. The feeling you should have is that you can't wait to deliver your speech.
And, how do you practice? Your speech should be written out completely or in an outline that's easy to follow. Memorize your speech efficiently by engraining the key words from your speech. The key word helps you remember the main points of your speech.
The best way I practice my speech is being able to say my speech anywhere and everywhere. When I walk in the park or I'm in the shower, I would take parts of my speech and just practice. If you know what your speech environment is going to be like, you can just close your eyes and imagine delivering your speech in that setting. That will train yourself to be more comfortable and relaxed when it's time to deliver your speech.
Step 3: Know that you've already had some practice with table topics. If you forget some part, you should still have some idea of what to say. Use your own words as if it's a table topics session. You can use words like "what I mean is..." "in other words..." The audience may not even notice any deviation from your actual script.
Step 4: Have a very brief outline ready. In the unlikely event of blanking out completely because you followed the first two steps, the outline will help get you back on track. But, don't write too much information on there because you don't want it to look too obvious that you've forgotten some part of your speech. Or, that you will just rely on your outline completely. You don't want to lose eye contact with your audience. Just use it as a back up.
Step 5: This one is the most important step. Your frame of mind before you head to the stage can make or break a speech. There are some methods out there about imagining the audience in underwear or clown outfits. But, I tend to use a more practical approach. I imagine that my heart is placed in the safest place possible. And, I remind myself that no matter what the result of the speech is, I would not be affected in anyway. For some, that place may be in God's hands or a trustworthy person. Effectively, your fear would not be a factor because you have just taken your focus from possible negative opinions from others.
Step 6: Take a deep breath. Breathing is one of the most important and underutilized methods of calming oneself. In fact, if you try it right now, breathe deeply and try to think.
You can't. So, breathing will help you clear your thoughts, and mentally prepare you before you get on the stage.
So, congratulations fellow toastmasters, you are equipped with the fear conquering skills. Remember, know your project, practice, use quick thinking, have a brief outline, check your frame of mind, and breathe. You are on your way to being a more confident and powerful speaker. I hope you have the opportunity to speak at our club, remember, our meetings are every 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of every month at the Urban33 hotel. Thank you for watching.
